Mr. Turner is not so much a historical biopic; it is one man’s performance. Timothy Spall grunts and groans his way through a remarkable portrayal of the British artist J.M.W. Turner. Written and directed by the accomplished filmmaker Mike Leigh, Mr. Turner is a fascinating study of a man with supernatural skill on canvas but just as human as the rest of us mere mortals in his everyday life. Leigh shows us generosity and selfishness and a man respectful of tradition yet always aware and curious about the latest technology. Falling well within the wheelhouse of those who appreciate period costume pieces and historical dramas, Mr. Turner is a must-see for any audience member who seeks out the demanding, all-encompassing role of a lifetime. Mike Leigh (Vera Drake, 2004 & Topsy-Turvy, 1999) usually casts actors from his long and successful stage and screen credit list. Spall has worked with him five times now. Just about all of the rest of the Mr. Turner cast show up in Leigh’s other films as well. Leigh chose to showcase the artist’s last quarter century of life, roughly from the mid-1820s to his death in 1851. We watch Turner travel, paint, interact with his artist peers and his family, and marvel at the products of the Industrial Revolution.

Turner is mostly known for his thousands of paintings of seascapes and shipwrecks. For inspiration, we see Turner travel to mainland Europe, boat around England’s shores, and even have himself tied up to a ship’s mast during a thunderstorm to witness firsthand the colors and ferocity in order to accurately reproduce it through paint. Through Leigh and Spall’s interpretation, we learn Turner did not fastidiously paint in minute detail and agonize over every dot. He swiped, spit, and smeared the canvas prompting some to call him genius and others, including Queen Victoria, to despise his work.

Turner’s domestic life could also be as messy as one of his shipwrecks. He revered his barber father, William Turner (Paul Jesson), who became his son's studio assistant in his old age. A woman, Sarah Darby (Ruth Sheen), with whom he fathered two daughters, drops by every now and then to scowl, sneer, and excoriate him for showing such little interest in his illegitimate family as he skips births and funerals. The woman who loves him truly was his housekeeper for 40 years, Hannah Darby (Dorothy Atkinson). Turner mostly ignores Hannah yet she will do for a quick sexual aide when the mood strikes him. During one of his frequent trips to the seaside at Margate, Turner meets Sophia Booth (Marion Bailey), a landlady and guesthouse keeper. Booth and Turner strike up a romance as he travels to Margate so often perhaps because she has no idea how famous he is at first innocently asking if he will continue to sketch his ‘nice little pictures’.

Turner’s professional life as an elected member of the Royal Academy is one of respect and sometimes amusement. He will overtly mock fellow artists and chuckle at their latest attempts at the craft. Meanwhile, as Turner strays further and further from form itself, the general public take jabs at his increasingly abstract renditions. Despite the public’s awareness of what Turner was up to in his experiments with new notions of perspective, the art critic and social commentator John Ruskin (Joshua McGuire) drops in every now and again to everyone’s amusement with his high-minded opinions and grand announcements of his keen intellect.

Concerning the new contraptions and advancements of the Industrial Revolution, Mike Leigh has Turner marvel at the steam engine spewing its soot across the English countryside and counts Turner as an early champion of photography. Turner peppers a cameraman taking his daguerreotype with questions about the inner workings of the apparatus and wryly muses about what the art and science of photography may do to the business of painting. In one of the film’s more amusing moments, Turner drags Mrs. Booth to get their daguerreotype taken and she is as scared as she has probably ever been in her life.

Gorgeously shot by cinematographer and frequent Mike Leigh collaborator, Dick Pope, Mr. Turner at times looks like a painting. Turner silhouetted against a setting sun next to a windmill or in a rowboat observing an obsolete wind-powered ship are just a few moments the audience will stare at and absorb breathtaking visuals. For all its visual accomplishments and historical appreciation, Mr. Turner remains Timothy Spall’s virtuoso performance. Mike Leigh creates an absorbing story about a man many folks nowadays only recognize off-hand, if at all, but Spall creates dimensions and depth which should make J.M.W. Turner famous once again.